Birds Eye View of Casco Bay 1905 - with WWII manuscript Mosquito Eradication Plan drawn on the map

    This unique example of Birds Eye View of Casco Bay: Portland, Maine and Surroundings. c. 1905 was owned and used by Officer Lt. Armstrong as a military "site plan" for the U.S. Army's program to prevent malaria during  WWII ^1/  at it primary East Coast base, Casco Bay, Maine. The base was both defensive and offensive in its programs throughout WWII.  Hand written instructions on the face of the map document the actions required or completed  - "Should be done away with", or "Marsh drained" as part of the mosquito eradication program. These notations are along the coast, on small, populated islands, and inland where swamps existed and on privately owned and identified property where mosquitoes might breed. In WWII, in the Pacific Theatre, the U.S. Army was fighting both Malaria and enemy armies. The onset of war in Europe continued the U.S. Army's need to contain contagious, mosquito borne disease.  This aspect of WWII on U.S. soil may not be well documented in literature for general distribution notwithstanding contemporary research and U.S. Army historians' presentations in Maine on this topic. It was certainly a surprise to find this Geo. H. Walker lithographed map selected for use in the U.S. Army's WWII mosquito eradication program. But why not? As a work of art and as a finely detailed map Birds Eye View of Casco Bay: Portland, Maine and Surroundings on one page represents in practical terms everything one needs to know about the topography of Casco Bay.
    The map as found includes its printed covers titled "Colored Bird's Eye View of Casco Bay Maine" with the added manuscript title "Mosquito Control" and originally paper clipped to the map a small notebook page dated "8/4/42 Mr. Scudder"  with extensive  notes pertaining to mosquito breeding habits, the need to drain marshes and rock pools, and the preferred Rx mosquito poison Saucony fuel oil.  Mr. Scudder may refer to  Harvey Israel Scudder, an esteemed American medical entomologist active by1943 in the U.S. Public Health Service. The mosquito poison specified in manuscript on the Casco Bay map is Oil Saucony Var. PD428-D. For emphasis, the map's annotator used blue pencil and black pencil, with circles and arrows on the front of the map. The notes include, for example, a big black, thick arrow pointing to "1,000 acres" circled and labeled a "SALT MARSH" just north of the Casco Castle. Many shorelines and inlets are labeled "Rock pool" and property owner's names are on the map.
    How dystopian it is to see this beautifully drawn and printed railroad vacationer's guide to Maine as a vacation land, and the scenic train ride to Mt. Washington annotated with angry marks about draining the scenic landscape. And yet this isn't dystopia, but rather the United States at war in WWII, and the U.S. Army taking actions intended to protect millions of American service personnel and the private ship building crews from a danger as great as international military combat at hand. Casco Bay was the site of ship building, and a port of disembarkation both for the Pacific Theatre and for Europe. It was therefore a perfect node for spreading infectious disease domestically and world wide.
    Today's viewer of the unique hand annotated Casco Bay 1905 map, having experienced the 2020 U.S. Government's peculiar lack of response or preparedness to the COVID pandemic, might incorrectly suspect that the U.S. government had not faced the threats of a contagious disease since the Flu Pandemic of 1918. But isn't this map a wonderful reminder that science and art went hand in hand in 1942. In fact the map is not dystopian, but the reverse. It is an ideal incorporation of art into the present, a 1905 map into 1942 with no reservations about the usefulness of the map's contents or of its relevance to contemporary affairs. The 1905 Birds Eye View of Casco Bay is a contemporary view of our place in this large landscape, inextricably bound to the ebb and flow of nature.
Note:
1. The Other Foe: The U.S. Army's Fight Against Malaria in the Pacific Theater, 1942-1945, Seth Paltzer, The Army Historical Foundation The Other Foe: The U.S. Army's Fight against Malaria in the Pacific Theater, 1942-45 - The Army Historical Foundation